Some people build their world focusing on life as an individual, while others prioritize how they fit into a greater system. Understanding perspective helps us better allocate time and interact with others and work toward our goals. Just make sure you set aside enough time for everyday life!

Your Perspective Matters

What we value dictates where we allocate time.

If we want to be surrounded by grand designs, images, and works of others, we must deliberately pursue them. Similarly, a highly-trained self requires intense focus and individualized development.

Your perspective determines what is valued, where you spend your time, and which actions make the most sense.

With so much we can do, there are countless ways we can spend our days. We tend to see people gravitate toward either a focus on the individual self (in some aspect, e.g., deep thought, athletics, etc.) or the entire surrounding image. Relatedly, we see understanding or communication gaps between people who do not share the same focus.

At the end of the day, what’s most important to you dictates where you go. If you want to make sure your time is best spent, it helps to consider your perspective and that of others so that you can both better understand the interaction.

Different Goals in Life

Success is not universal.

There are countless to value time and invest energy. Across possible perspectives, we generally see two main frameworks for building a successful life: one that focuses on self and another that focuses on building the entire surrounding image.

A successful execution of each of these frameworks may look similar in the end, but the central focuses are different. The first targets building better at the individual scale through introspection and physical well-being, while the second implements combined efforts to create something more than what is individually feasible.

These differed approaches largely reflect our value choices surrounding life at scale. Our preferences for self-creation compared to larger systems help us determine where to spend time. Understanding these frameworks and our individual preferences helps us better allocate time and build tools that create paths toward our goals.

Regardless of how we construct our lives, there are always chores we need to do to move from one day to the next. Building a base system for day-to-day life will help us better handle these non-negotiable tasks and keep us building toward our own unique visions for the future.

Without further delay, let’s consider life at scale.

Life at Scale

Nothing we do happens in complete isolation. Our decisions impact how we live and the lives of those around us, making it crucial to pay attention to an action’s reach and desired result.

For example, when we are deciding what to wear for the day, it’s important to consider where we plan to go and what we’ll do when we get there.

If we expect to be alone for most of the day or running errands, we can dress more casually and expect a narrower reach. If, instead, we have public professional engagements during the day, our outfit choices will impact how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves, influencing our overall success.

Shifting Perspective

Throughout life, we have to shift our perspective so that our efforts match the appropriate scale.

If we want to understand family dynamics, we have to consider relationships as they’ve developed within family dynamics, as well as each family members’ individual lives and communities. To understand a town, we have to look at how its key players have interact, the community’s general sentiment, and rules and regulations. We can push our focus out further still, considering the flow of information across towns, states, and countries and how information moves at a global scale. It really depends on what we want to learn.

We often have to bounce between different scales to get a fuller image of a situation, as we tend to bring outside experiences and relationships into different groups and collections of thought. If I want to better communicate with a group, I look at my relationship with each of the individual participants and what influences them. If I want the group to work better in the community, I have to consider how other individuals, groups, and community systems perceive the group and its objectives.

While it’s common to readjust focus in a manner that lets us look at life at its various scales, we tend to fall into general habits or preferences for how we build our worlds (i.e. the two frameworks). Let’s discuss.

Developing Perspective Preferences

We each operate within a complex web of relationships. Influences from friends, family, and past generations mold our environments, influencing where we choose to spend time and how we perceive value. In short, who we are and what we experience influences how we want to spend time.

As we float around life facing common interactions, experiences, and struggles, we tend to gravitate toward preferred perspectives for how we view the world. These perspective preferences make it easier to interpret information around us and automate our next steps so we can spend more time doing what we enjoy.

I find we generally fall into two distinct perspective frameworks: one where the practitioner looks at themselves as the ultimate marble awaiting design and another where the individual prioritizes building the world around them.

Regardless of the perspective framework we choose, it’s important that we take time to understand them both so we can better assess our decisions and those of our friends and loved ones.

To better understand these framework (and values of each) let’s consider them separately:

(1) One who builds prioritizing self

Time is finite, and there is always more to learn about ourselves.

With that in mind, we may want to focus our studies on the one thing that stays with us for the entirety of our existence: our self.

From body mechanics to emotional regulation and interpersonal development, we can always improve how we function as individuals. Each action offers opportunities to improve, and one who build the self places a preference on building the ultimate individual system.

This framework prioritizes the individual, in terms of physical, social, and mental development, at the cost of systems of scale. This view stands for the notion that all the beauty in the world means nothing if we cannot stand get there and assess for ourselves.

(2) System building

Instead of centering on the individual, this framework recognizes that we are just one body in a system of billions.

People have built pyramids through power and prompting others to work on their behalf.

For the system builder, the most accurate image requires an outward zoom that reflects the painting around them. This mentality places with the self at the center of a larger construct (kind of like Copernicus with the world at the center of the universe), with the main mind controlling everything around through the strings of a marionette.

While the self is important, this system recognizes that there is more than the body and, if you want systems of great scale, you have to design with that in mind.

Distinguishing Factors

When you take a photo of yourself (if you ever do), do you prioritize yourself or the scene?

We exist. That much will be assumed.

For what purpose?

Our decision here is where the two major frameworks separate. When we focus on the individual, the photo prioritizes us, and we may see little else in the background. If instead we see ourselves as a speck of sand in a desert, the photo may depict us within a scene, full of moving parts and personalities.

If we find that our journey occurs for us to build and explore ourselves, we will allocate resources with a preference for individual development. This means sacrificing the scene for an improved self.

If, instead, we find our physical selves to be a face in a mural, we will redistribute our time in favor of scale. One hand or body doesn’t mean as much when considered amongst billions.

Applicability

How we prefer to view the world around us dictates where we are most interested in spending time. As previously mentioned, there is more to do than time provides. Therefore, why not prioritize what we enjoy?

I see applicability for this framework all the time. For example, imagine that someone signs up for the gym to exercise with a friend who is passionate about body mechanics and form development.

The newcomer laments their lack of interest in exercise, and struggles to share the same enthusiasm as their partner. At the same time, the seasoned gym goer struggles to communicate with their partner because they don’t understand how someone could not be interested in learning how their body, the one thing they will have all their lives, works. Exercise becomes awkward, the two lose interest, and their fitness partnership ends.¹

This is an overcorrection due to a failure to recognize their preferred bundle of goods. The new gym goer and the form fanatic had similar goals in exercising together, but a failure to understand each other’s values and preferences led to a lack of interest and an unsuccessful workout routine. They both clearly had interest in working out together, but struggled to relay their interests and desires because they didn’t understand the others’ framework.

¹Having issues helping someone get into fitness? Check HERE.

Improving Communication By Understanding Frameworks

We each have different things that get us up and going for the day. One person’s baking hobby is another’s crocheting. Another still might despise them both, instead moved only by movement studies (not speaking personally here).

Taking time to consider how we value our time helps us better present ourselves in the world around us. When we know what we like, we know how it applies to things around us and others. Similarly, taking time to consider what we value helps us consider what our peers value and how they present it.

Understanding Frameworks Helps Recognize Patterns

Once we understand the framework we use to prioritize decisions, we start to see the small decisions we make in favor of that value proposition. We recognize decision-making patterns and where we’re likely to go.

We can start to recognize the same things in others. If someone has similar values, they start to stick out because these people act similarly to us.

Better yet, improving our understanding of common decision-making frameworks helps us recognize behaviors of people with different values from us, potentially saving ourselves from disagreements and senseless argument.

I find that arguments most often arise from a lack of understanding. Beyond a simple lack of understanding what is said, a lack of understanding values commonly results in disgust and confusion when interacting with peers.

We benefit when we can recognize how others come to a conclusion. If we take time to look at what gets a person going, we are more likely to see where they’re want to end up.

Regardless of whether we want to focus on self, small family, or developing systems of scale, there are base skillsets and factors we are prudent to consider. Build this base so you have more time for everything else.

Within Each System Lies an Common Base

Each day requires a few common things from everyone. We need to eat, move around, clean ourselves, use restrooms, and take care of those dependent upon us. While we don’t all need to be gymnasts, these factors apply to everyone and should not be ignored merely becasue they don’t interest us.

While I want you to pursue your interests — even if I don’t share in them myself — I ask you to take time to build a solid base so that you can continue what you enjoy sustainably.

Sometimes, our interests take care of these base needs. Our community building might have someone take care of our meals, and our fitness fanaticism may handle our body maintenance needs. This is great. However, it is important that we take care of our needs in addition to our interests so that we continue to operate smoothly across all barriers of life.

This applies to you, too, hyper-specialists.

Hyper-Specialists Beware

We all hear the stories. The youngest professional athlete wins championships at fifteen but never learns to interact with peers or drive a car. A famous violinist who has never been on a sports field before.

Often, these situations are the product of our upbringing (which is a separate discussion entirely). However, it is common that we specialize in one particular task above all others.

This can be great. It’s nice to get good at what you enjoy. Just try to remember that there is more to the world than the one thing you find yourself to be good at.

If you’ve become so successful in your task that you can hire servants to do everything else, fine. So be it.

However, most never get to this position, and there are still other things to do. I encourage you to study the basics regardless of your desired framework or passions so that you can efficiently manage your day. At the very least, this will help you more effectively manage your time and anyone you employ to conduct these tasks on your behalf. It will also help you understand what goes into your day and how it helps you move from one moment to the next.

Conclusion

There are infinite ways we can spend our days.

In the pursuit of doing and doing more, we tend to construct our lives with two major focuses: one with the preference for ourselves as individuals and the other prioritizing systems at scale. These focuses dictate where we spend our time and how we value different decisions.

Taking a little time to consider how you prioritize your time will help you make better decisions. It will also help you interact with others and keep yourself out of disagreement. After all, the biggest waste of time is senseless argument.

At the end of the day, there will be things we need to do regardless of whether we prioritize ourselves or a system at scale, and it is wise that we study them. We can still specialize in what we enjoy, and a focus on the basics will make that easier.

It’s your time, so spend it how you deem fit.

Thoughts? Let me know!

-G

Enjoy this post? Check out The Pitch and learn what EfficientlyELITE is all about!